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[robby balboa] 24/4/2006 16:27

Yes,

Keep your £ in your pocket.

[qc2] 24/4/2006 16:27

Get your £'s on @ 11/2 or better if you can find it, but no less. Thats my tip.

Anyone else been following the snooker ?

[ariane] 18/10/2005 18:38

Kenneth Clark eliminated in Conservative leadership election UPDATE

(Adds details of voting)
LONDON (AFX) - Kenneth Clark has been eliminated in the first round of
voting in the Conservative party leadership election.
Three candidates, David Davis, David Cameron and Liam Fox now go forward to
the next round of voting on Thursday when Conservative MPs will eliminate a
further candidate.
In today's ballot, Davis received 62 votes, Cameron 56 votes, Fox 42 votes
and Clarke 38 votes.
[e-mail]
ec/ak

[grupo guitarlumber] 28/9/2005 10:11

U.K. Conservative Clarke Expects Place in Final Leader Contest
Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Former U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke, a candidate for leader of the Conservatives, predicted he will win enough support among the party's lawmakers to secure a place in the final vote by members.

``I'm going to come at least second'' among members of Parliament to be in a run-off, Clarke, 67, said in a radio interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. ``I think some of the other camps are putting out to the more gullible of your trade some very ambitious figures of the number of MPs they're going to get.''

The leadership contest was sparked when Michael Howard said after losing the May 5 general election that he would step down from the post.

Under voting rules, Conservative Party members will choose a leader between two candidates selected by the party's lawmakers. Senior members of the party yesterday failed to approve proposed rule changes to give members of Parliament the final say. Clarke and rivals will now lobby the party's 300,000 members for support before the Conservatives' annual conference beginning Oct. 3.

``There are opinion polls showing me ahead among the activists, the voluntary party, and I think the newspapers are trying to guess at the number of MPs people are going to get,'' Clarke said.

He remains second favorite, on odds of 2-1, to succeed current Howard, according to bookmaker Ladbrokes. David Davis, the Conservative lawmaker in charge of home affairs issues, is the favorite with odds of 4-9 though he hasn't yet formally announced that he is a candidate.

Clarke said his chances haven't been hurt by his previous support for Britain adopting the euro and his current position as deputy chairman of British American Tobacco Plc, the world's second largest cigarette maker. ``I don't think either of the issues you've raised show any sign of having damaged my reputation,'' he said.

Also expressing an interest in the leadership post are members of Parliament David Cameron, Malcolm Rifkind and Liam Fox.

[waldron] 19/9/2005 07:04

Opinion - William Rees-Mogg



September 19, 2005

History is against you, Ken
William Rees-Mogg
His supporters are dwindling and at heart the Conservative Party is . . . conservative



IT IS 50 YEARS since Winston Churchill resigned as leader of the Conservative Party. In that period there have been seven contested elections for the leadership. In six of these the candidate of the Centre Right has been chosen by the party, under three different methods of selection - by the "magic circle", by the Members of Parliament and by the whole party membership. The only occasion on which the perceived centre-lft candidate beat the centre Right was in 1965, when Ted Heath beat Reggie Maudling. Even then, Reggie was no Margaret Thatcher, but would now be regarded as a left-wing Conservative.
This is not a mystery. The Conservative Party is a party of conservatives. William Hague, the last but one of the centre-right leaders to be chosen, has recently published an excellent life of the Younger Pitt, who - far more than Disraeli - is the archetypal Conservative leader. The issues of Pitt's time as Prime Minister did include modernisation, but they centred on the defence of Britain and the stability of society in a period of rapid change. It was the radical leader, Charles James Fox, who sympathised with the radical dictator, Napoleon Bonaparte, just as many Labour leaders in the 20th century sympathised with the Stalinist radicalism of the Soviet Union.



I expect the Conservatives will again choose a leader from the Centre Right, because that is the point of balance of their party. I do not expect them to choose Ken Clarke; he will have a better chance if the vote stays with the members of the party. That decision will be taken a week tomorrow.

Ken Clarke is not a radical on home affairs, or even much of a moderniser, but he is a dyed-in-the-wool Europhile, and the great majority of Conservatives are Eurosceptic. They believe in self-government for Great Britain, not Brussels government, and think that European integration has already gone too far. A Europhile leader would simply split the party.

I like and admire the young team that supports David Cameron, but I have not been convinced by its specific case for modernisation. His campaign has not gathered momentum, nor the votes of many MPs. Most Conservatives do support modernisation, but their ideal is a free-market modernisation; that is to be found in the speeches of the centre-right candidates, sometimes in a dynamic form. It is significant that David Willetts, when he decided to give up his own leadership campaign, chose to support David Davis and not David Cameron. Mr Willetts is the leading policy intellectual in the party.

At present, there are four surviving candidates: David Davis, Kenneth Clarke, Liam Fox and David Cameron. If one thinks that a right-of-centre candidate will be chosen, and the odds are 6-1, that leaves David Davis and Liam Fox as the candidates most likely to succeed.

Much will depend on the choice of the method of election. If "one man, one vote" is abolished, the Members of Parliament could decide by early November. David Davis does not have a majority among MPs, but he does have much the largest support. Insiders seem to be convinced that David Davis will win if the vote goes back to Members of Parliament. I expect they are right.

The fascinating question is what might happen if the vote stays with the members of the party. They would be presented with two names, chosen by the MPs. David Davis would presumably come first, but who would the other one be?

It could be Ken Clarke, as most people would assume. However, he does not have strong support among MPs, least of all among the new entry. Many of his old supporters have retired, or lost their seats. It could be David Cameron, but he seems not to be gaining votes among MPs. It could be Liam Fox. At present, the three of them seem to have roughly equal numbers among MPs; no one knows for sure.

In most of the postwar contests, "anyone but him" has played as large a part as positive preferences. MPs clustered around the "stop Rab" or "stop Michael" candidates, and indeed both Rab Butler and Michael Heseltine were well and truly stopped. I now detect no "stop Cameron" or "stop Fox" bandwagons. But there certainly are groups who would like to "stop Davis" or "stop Clarke". I am sure there are some MPs who belong to both factions.

Last week both David Davis and Liam Fox made good speeches about social issues that appeal to the broad church of conservatism. Liam Fox emphasised the social importance of the family. "The signs of a broken society are all around us. In the increase in violent crime. In the growth of family breakdown. In worsening domestic violence. In record rates of abortion. In rising teenage pregnancy rates, increasing numbers of suicides." His speech was well received. Liam Fox's campaign has taken him from fifth or below among the candidates last May, to probably third now.

It will be for the Members of Parliament to decide which of their colleagues should be chosen as the two candidates to go before the full membership, if that method is retained. The assumption has been that this would be a choice of Right v Left; in that case, the right-of-centre candidate would, on the precedents, be favourite to win. In such a contest, I think David Davis would in fact win, particularly against Kenneth Clarke, because a Davis-Clarke contest would inevitably be fought on Europe.

Yet the heart of the Conservative Party, including the parliamentary party, is a little bit right of centre, conservative and Eurosceptic. If, on the first parliamentary ballot, Liam Fox beats David Cameron, he might beat Ken Clarke on the second. In that case, the run-off would be between two moderate but undoubted conservatives.

Liam Fox and David Davis: I am not sure who would have greater appeal to the party activists. It would be for them to decide.

[waldron] 10/9/2005 09:12

Ken Clarke: some appeal, many flaws
(Filed: 10/09/2005)

The best argument for Ken Clarke is one that, by its nature, he cannot make himself. So, in the interest of fairness, we shall make it for him. It runs as follows. The Conservatives are unlikely to win the next election: they are leagues behind in the polls and, even under the new boundaries, they will be penalised by the electoral system. It therefore doesn't much matter what Mr Clarke would do in office, since it is improbable that he will occupy it.

Instead of judging him as a putative Prime Minister, we should assess him as a Leader of the Opposition. Here, he scores well. He is a fine parliamentary performer; voters like him; he would go some way towards humanising the Tories; and, no less important, he would bring them that dash of good-natured optimism that they have lately lacked. He is, in summary, nicely placed to restore party morale and add a clutch of new seats before stepping aside for a younger leader who might reasonably hope to win the election after next.

Several Conservative supporters have tacitly made this calculation - hence the surge in support for Mr Clarke indicated in our survey. He has also been boosted by the support of a number of Labour-leaning columnists and broadcasters - much of which would, you may be sure, dry up in the event that he in fact became Tory leader. In a leadership campaign in which the other candidates have been too nervous to say anything interesting, Mr Clarke has dominated the stage, Falstaff-like, a big man in every sense.

Even as Opposition leader, of course, Mr Clarke would have his drawbacks. Of all the declared candidates, he seems the least open to fresh thinking. He has shown little interest, for example, in the new agenda of localism. He still believes, deep down, that the voters got it wrong in 1997 and that, sooner or later, they will come to their senses. His "one more heave" approach would be fine if the Tories were ahead in the polls, but they are not. And his obsessive Europeanism could sunder his party for good.

These may, however, turn out to be remediable faults. With a little effort, Mr Clarke could re-examine some of the issues that he last thought about in the 1970s. Instead of absurdly pretending that Europe is off the agenda - when in fact the constitution is being implemented clause by clause - he could say to his MPs: "You know where I stand on this, and I wouldn't be the man I am if I backed down. But I accept that the same applies to you, and you will all have the freedom to follow your consciences." Can Mr Clarke do this and remain true to himself? The answer may determine the outcome of the contest.

[waldron] 10/9/2005 05:56

income tax

A dip in the middle

Sep 8th 2005
From The Economist print edition


The Conservatives toy with a politically risky idea

INCOME tax has been paid in Britain for more than two centuries. First introduced by William Pitt the Younger to finance the war against Napoleonic France, it is the Treasury's biggest source of revenue, raising 30% of tax receipts. It arouses strong political emotions, regarded as fair by some because it makes the rich pay a bigger share of their income than the poor, but unfair by others because it penalises enterprise and hard work.

During the past 30 years, income tax has been subject to sweeping changes, notably the cut in the top rate from 98% to 40% under Margaret Thatcher between 1979 and 1988. Now another Conservative politician, George Osborne, is floating a radical reform to match that earlier exploit. The shadow chancellor announced on September 7th that he was setting up a commission to explore the possible introduction of a flat tax in Britain.

Mr Osborne's big new idea stems in part from frustration at the Conservative party's failure to win votes on tax in the past two elections. Their proposal to cut taxes by £4 billion ($7.4 billion) a year did them few favours at the polls in May. Such a paltry reduction in a trillion-pound economy seemed an apology of a policy.

By contrast, the introduction of a flat tax would be a radical step. The reform is already being tried elsewhere. Mr Osborne first expressed interest in the flat tax after a visit in June to Estonia, which introduced it in 1994. Since then eight other countries in eastern and central Europe have followed suit. Poland appears likely to adopt a flat income tax. Even Germany is flirting with the idea (see article).

Introducing a flat income tax into Britain would involve two main changes. At present, there are three marginal tax rates. The first £2,090 of taxable income is taxed at 10%; the next £30,310 is taxed at the basic rate of 22%; and income above that is taxed at the higher rate of 40%. These three rates would be replaced by a single rate, which would be considerably lower than the current top rate. At the same time there would be an increase in the tax-free personal allowance, currently worth £4,895.

Flat-tax proponents say that the reform would yield many economic benefits. If it were combined with an assault on other tax reliefs, then it would simplify a tax system that is groaning with complexity. The latest edition of "Tolley's Yellow Tax Handbook", which contains all direct-tax legislation for 2005-06, runs to four weighty volumes and has roughly doubled in length since Gordon Brown became chancellor of the exchequer in 1997. Only this week, Mr Brown was upbraided by a parliamentary committee for the complex "nightmare" of his system of tax credits, designed to help poorer families.

Another advantage is that reform could sweep a lot of low-paid people out of income tax altogether. In the past eight years under Labour, the number of income-tax payers has risen from 26.2m to 30.5m. Over the same period, the number of higher-rate taxpayers has risen from 2.1m to 3.6m.

Flat-tax fans also think that it could trigger a new economic dynamism, as people respond to the enhanced incentive to work harder. The more this happens, the more the reform could pay for itself as a bigger economy generates more tax revenues.

So much for the economic case for a flat tax. What of its politics? One obvious objection is that the reform would be unfair, since the richer would pay less tax than they do at present. Advocates of a flat tax make two rejoinders. First, an income-tax system with a single rate remains progressive-the rich pay a higher proportion of their income than the poor-as long as it is combined with a tax-free allowance. Second, the rich can exploit current complexities to avoid taxes in ways that could be curtailed in a flat-tax system.

But could a flat tax be introduced without there being losers? A recent paper from the Adam Smith Institute suggested that this would indeed be possible. Richard Teather, its author, proposed a flat-rate tax of 22%, the present basic rate, with a tax-free personal allowance of £12,000, more than double the current one. "All taxpayers would be better off under the reform," he argued.

However, the proposal has an obvious flaw. As Mr Teather himself admits, it would result in an initial loss in revenue of £50 billion a year. That is over a third of the total income-tax receipts of £138 billion that the Treasury expects this year; and a tenth of all government revenues.

Unless public spending were slashed, other taxes would have to rise to meet this shortfall. So a more realistic simulation of the impact of a flat tax is to make it revenue-neutral. The Economist asked John Hawksworth, an economist at PricewaterhouseCoopers, an accountancy firm, to calculate what that might involve. He said the current yield of income tax could be preserved with a flat rate of 30% and a personal allowance of £10,000. We also asked Mr Hawksworth to estimate what impact such a reform would have on income-tax payers. Under this revenue-neutral approach, there would be losers as well as winners compared with current tax bills (see chart).








Those who would gain are low-earners as well as high-fliers. For example, someone on £10,000 would gain 8.7% of their income; someone on £100,000 would gain 5% of their income. Those who would lose are in the middle, with losses peaking at 3.5% of income at the current higher-rate threshold of £37,295. In all, more than 10m income-tax payers-a third of the present number-would lose from such a reform.

Clearly, different combinations of allowance and tax rate would generate different results. But the general pattern would remain the same. "If you raise the same revenue but increase the allowance, then it is the people in the middle of the income tax paying population that lose from a flat tax," says Christopher Heady, head of tax policy at the OECD.

This finding is politically awkward for the Tories. Unless a flat income tax were financed by big increases in other taxes, it is difficult to see how it could realistically be introduced without exacting a lot of pain among middling earners. Yet their votes will be crucial if the Conservatives are to stand any chance at the next election.

The flat tax is an arresting idea-and politically attractive because it gives the Tories a platform to attack Labour's itch to meddle with the tax code-but it does not get the Conservatives off the hook. Mr Osborne wants lower and simpler taxes. However, he will be able to achieve that goal only if he can work out a convincing set of proposals to cut public spending.

[waldron] 08/9/2005 08:32

September 08, 2005

Tory rivals square up to prove they can beat Brown
By Philip Webster and David Charter
The leadership frontrunners try to show they are a match for the Chancellor






KENNETH CLARKE and David Davis will go head-to-head today in the battle to prove that they could defeat Gordon Brown at the next election.
After a barnstorming opening to his Tory leadership campaign, Mr Clarke will use his second big speech to dismantle the myth that Mr Brown is a fine Chancellor of the Exchequer, MPs close to the former Chancellor said last night.

Believing that he is the only senior Conservative with the credibility to take on Mr Brown, who remains the favourite to succeed Tony Blair, Mr Clarke will present himself as the country's leading advocate of popular capitalism and promise to do all he can to reverse the damage done to the savings culture by his successor.



According to his supporters, Mr Clarke's speech today in London will emphasise that he would be a free-market, low-tax prime minister. He will accuse Mr Brown of squandering the legacy that he bequeathed him. He will dissect Mr Brown's record, saying that there is a massive gap between his rhetoric and reality, and ridicule him for trying to cling on to his reputation for prudence by changing the length of the economic cycle in order to stay within his fiscal rules.

Mr Clarke's camp has been buoyed by opinion polls this week showing that he is the public's overwhelming choice to be leader, and by yesterday's survey of constituency chairmen in The Times suggesting that he is ahead of Mr Davis.

In the view of many MPs the contest has become a fight between Mr Davis and Mr Clarke, and some are speculating that David Cameron could pull out at an early stage.

But Mr Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, who has yet to declare his candidacy but remains the bookies' favourite to win the Tory leadership, will also try today to show that he would be a match for Mr Brown. He will go to Scotland to highlight what he calls Mr Brown's seven deadly sins, including big spending, big tax rises and big government.

The battle between the two frontrunners in the race to replace Michael Howard threatens to overshadow the official start today of Liam Fox's leadership campaign. Dr Fox, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, has chosen a mental health rehabilitation centre in North London as the backdrop for his launch to emphasise that he wants the party to work for the interests of all of society.

He will disclose two more MPs who back his campaign: Gary Streeter, MP for Devon South West, and Desmond Swayne, of New Forest West. They bring the total of his declared backers to ten.

Mr Clarke was found to be ahead of Mr Davis in the affections of local Tory association chairman by almost two to one in the Times survey. Of the 63 chairmen who would be drawn on their favoured leader, 36 came out for Mr Clarke, compared with 20 for Mr Davis. There were four supporters of Mr Cameron, the Shadow Education Secretary, two for Dr Fox and one for Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary.

There were signs that Mr Clarke's perceived ability to attract new supporters was influencing some chairmen. Tony Barlow, the chairman of Bury South Conservatives, said: "I was inclining towards David Davis . . . I cannot get to grips with Ken Clarke's views on Europe, but as far as attracting the popular vote, I think he is the most charismatic. He has softened his European views a bit . . . and now I am leaning strongly towards Ken."

Doreen Leighton, of Gedling Tories in Nottingham, backed Mr Clarke, saying: "We need someone who appeals across the board. We are selecting a leader not a PM. We need someone who can act as party leader regardless."

Mr Cameron was backed by Charles Johnson, of Darlington Tories: "I do not support yesterday's men. The party has for too long looked over its shoulder. We need some youth and fervour on our side, so my money is on David Cameron."

And Dr Fox was backed by Colin Thomas, the chairman of East Surrey Conservatives: "I do not want to do to David Cameron what we did the William Hague. He will make an excellent leader, but not yet. I would prefer Dr Fox."



WHAT THEY SAID

Local Tory party constituency chairmen across the country expressed support for Kennet Clarke because of a belief that he could reach out to attract new voters.



Nick Crass, chairman of Sedgefield Conservatives, said: "The country would probably rally around Clarke more than the others at this stage, he is probably the most voter-friendly at this stage."

Don Spearman (Bath) said: "I am quite supportive of Ken Clarke. It is my personal opinion because I feel he is the sort of person who can rally not only existing Conservatives but people we have lost and those we might gain from other parties."

Robert Sears (Cambridgeshire North East) said: "I am a Eurosceptic, but I think Ken Clarke has enormous appeal. He appeals to those in the country who want a different kind of leader. He is personable and brings humour in a time when politics is so dull."

Joan Thomas (Ceredigion) said: "Ken Clarke has charisma and the experience of a Cabinet post. Charisma is what Margaret Thatcher had and charisma is what allows the leader of a party to win the electorate's support."

Paul Valerio (Swansea West) said: "I would be happy with Ken Clarke, although I have always been suspicious of his European views and the leader we choose will probably be for the next eight years, by which time the question of Europe may re-emerge. However, the public do love him."

CHARLOTTE NEWTON and ARION McNICOLL

[guru11] 05/9/2005 22:48

Ken Clarke is the ONLY hope the Conservatives have.
Dont vote in an UNKNOWN, he will loose against Blair and Brown.
They need a known character, Ken Clarke will provide this.
He is a man for the people not a conservative TOFF.

[ariane] 04/9/2005 15:49

Tories consider 'one rate for all' income tax
By Melissa Kite, Deputy Political Editor
(Filed: 04/09/2005)

The Tories are to launch a review of Britain's tax system with a view to simplifying it and possibly bringing in a "flat tax".

George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, will unveil a "special commission" on taxation this week, heralding the biggest shake-up in Tory tax policy for almost two decades.


George Osborne: seeking a fresh, dynamic tax policy
In a speech to the Social Market Foundation think-tank, Mr Osborne will announce that he is considering the benefits of a flat tax - under which all exemptions and allowances are abolished and everyone pays the same rate.

The commission will be headed by a senior businessman, and will report next year on the way that such a tax system has worked in other countries and the viability of introducing it to Britain.

If a flat tax is adopted as Tory policy it will be the biggest shift since Nigel Lawson cut the top rate of income tax to 40 per cent in 1988. Conservative strategists are keen to avoid a replay of the stale argument they had with Labour at the general election about tax and spending cuts. They want to be able to present instead their tax policy as fresh and dynamic.

A flat tax system has been adopted in 11 countries, mostly in eastern Europe. But Mr Brown has remained implacably opposed to the idea, which would see the end of his tax credits system.

Senior Tories have been studying the progress of flat taxes in eastern Europe and the suggestion by Angela Merkel, Germany's opposition leader, that the system may be desirable in her country.

Mr Osborne's commission will explore tax simplification and flat taxes specifically, said a source close to the shadow chancellor.

The Tories were dismayed by the failure of their piecemeal taxation proposals at the May election and believe that a radical new approach is required.

One senior Conservative said: "Our hope is to build a narrative which makes sense of tax policy in the context of a much broader economic policy. We have to explain how we will deal with the challenge of India and China. We also have to challenge Gordon Brown on the terrible complexity he has brought to the tax system."

Senior Tories recognise the political problems that would come with an outright flat tax system - such as removing exemptions for pensions savings. But they see less complicated taxes as having electoral appeal and the attraction of being a new idea.

Treasury documents released under the Freedom of Information Act recently appeared to show that officials had dismissed the idea. But two weeks ago, a full version of the Treasury's research was unearthed by Mr Osborne's team.

This revealed that significant sections - showing that officials were impressed - had been blacked out.

Part of a two-page section that was removed said: "The reduction in rates and thus the tax burden faced by individuals should, in theory, stimulate further economic growth". It would establish "a one-off virtuous circle from tax cuts to economic growth to tax revenue".

Mr Osborne, who will travel to China this week on a fact-finding mission, is the latest senior politician to warm to a flat tax.

Mrs Merkel appointed Paul Kirchhof, a prominent flat tax advocate, as a leading adviser to her election campaign last month, while Giorgios Alogoskoufis, Greece's finance minister, said that from 2007 he would like to introduce a single 25 per cent band for both corporate and personal income. In the US, Steve Forbes, a former presidential candidate and the editor-in-chief of Forbes Magazine, has published a new book advocating a flat tax.

[ariane] 31/8/2005 18:38

U.K.'s Clarke Makes Third Bid to Lead Conservatives (Update2)
Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Britain's former Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke said he will contest the leadership of the Conservatives, his third attempt to take charge of Britain's biggest opposition party.

Clarke, 65, served as finance minister under former Prime Minister John Major between 1993 and 1997. He is the oldest and most experienced among candidates for the leadership including David Davis, 57, the party's lawmaker in charge of home affairs, and David Cameron, 38, in charge of education issues.

``Ken is one of the very big beasts in the party,'' Conservative lawmaker Andrew Mitchell, a supporter of Clarke in 2001, said today in a radio interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. ``I think that his time is gone and that the right man to lead his party, now in its dire position that we are in as a party, is David Davis.''

The candidates are vying to replace Michael Howard, the Conservatives' fourth leader to be defeated in elections by Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party. Howard said after losing a vote in May that he would step down as soon as the party established rules for electing a leader, which will happen later this year.

``I'm getting frustrated by the fact we've been out of office for eight years,'' Clarke said today in London as he left his house. ``I desperately want to see the Conservative Party make quick progress in getting back into power.''

Smoking Links

Action on Smoking & Health, an anti-smoking lobby, said Clarke was unfit for office since he is deputy chairman of British American Tobacco Plc, maker of Lucky Strike and Benson & Hedges cigarettes. A cigar smoker, Clarke also is a director of Alliance Unichem Plc and Savoy Asset Management Plc.

``British American Tobacco is one of the most appalling companies in the world; its products responsible for death and disease on an awesome scale,'' said ASH director Deborah Arnott.

Clarke has said he will resign from BAT if he becomes Conservative Party leader.

Age is another issue Clarke will face. Howard, 64, said when he announced that he was stepping down as party leader that he would be too old to lead the Conservatives into an election due by 2010, when he will be almost 70. Clarke brushed aside questions of age, saying, ``In this day and age, it's ridiculous to say I'm too old.''

``As leader of the opposition I will work to develop new policies of depth and vision,'' Clarke said on a Web site he unveiled today to campaign for the leadership. ``I will put the Conservative Party on track for government.''

Opposed Iraq War

Clarke also opposed his party in refusing to support the war in Iraq, which was backed by Howard, Davis, Cameron and the previous leader of the party, Iain Duncan Smith. In March 2003, as British troops were preparing to invade Iraq, Clarke called the action ``unlawful'' and said ``the case for war is not yet made.''

Blair's party lost support in the last election because of the increasing unpopularity of the war. A YouGov Ltd. poll on April 10 showed 54 percent of British voters opposed the war compared with 31 percent who supported it. YouGov said the poll had a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

He failed to become leader in 1997 and again in 2001 in a run- off vote with Smith as Clarke's support for Britain's membership of the euro cost him the contest. Clarke signaled in an Aug. 23 interview with Central Banking, a London-based journal, that he no longer believes Britain should join the euro in the next 10 years.

Clarke's odds of winning the leadership were improved today by bookmaker William Hill Plc from 10-1 to 5-1. Davis is the favorite to win the leadership contest, with odds of 4-11 at bookmaker William Hill Plc. Cameron is second at 4-1.

Clarke will tomorrow deliver the first of a series of campaign speeches before the leadership contest, which will begin formally at the Conservative Party conference in October.

[ariane] 30/8/2005 09:26

August 30, 2005

Clarke's £1m tobacco pay may be his smoking gun
By Andrew Pierce






KENNETH CLARKE, the former Chancellor and a front runner to become the next Tory leader, has made £1 million from his role as an ambassador for the international cigarettes trade.
Mr Clarke has for eight years been the deputy chairman of British American Tobacco, the second-largest producer, which sells 855 billion cigarettes annually in 190 countries.

The scale of his earnings, which does not appear in his declaration in the Commons Register of Members' Interests, was uncovered by The Times from the annual reports of BAT. His annual fee is £150,000 plus £21,000 of benefits in kind that, in the past, BAT was not obliged to record.



Mr Clarke, who has a clutch of other City directorships, has pledged to resign from BAT, which agressively promotes the sales of cigarettes in the Third World, if he becomes Tory leader in the autumn. He is a key figure on the board of the £2 billion company. He chairs the remuneration committee, which fixes the fees of the chairman, executive directors and management board.

Mr Clarke is not required in the MPs register of interests to disclose the income from his City posts but merely the names of the directorships. By the time of the leadership contest his income from BAT since 1998 will have been £1 million.

His lucrative links with the cigarette industry will be a gift for Labour and the Liberal Democrats if Mr Clarke becomes Tory leader. Even some of his supporters in the Conservative Party believe that his continued connections to the cigarette industry will be a political liability.

Mr Clarke, 64, the most popular choice in opinion polls to replace Michael Howard as leader of the Tory Party, also heads BAT's corporate social responsibility committee. The committee is co-ordinating efforts by the company, which has 15 per cent of the world cigarette market, to reducing child labour.

A spokesman said: "Ken Clarke is a key figure in BAT. He takes an active interest in the area of child labour. While there is none involved in our factories we know that on tobacco farms child labour is widespread. Often the farms are very small and the only way they can be viable is for the children in the family to be involved. But we are looking at ways that we can make the production process less reliant on child labour."

The BAT website says that the company is, "Developing a long-term strategy and programme to combat child labour; raising research-based awareness of the reasons why child labour occurs; working with all relevant stakeholders to eliminate child labour in tobacco growing".

The week before he announced his candidacy in the 2001 contest The Times tracked down Mr Clarke to a hotel in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. He was on BAT business but denied that he was promoting the sale of cigarettes to young people. "This is as good a place as any to contemplate the future of the Tory leadership," he said.

Mr Clarke flies all over the world on business for BAT and was in Kuala Lumpur this year. The current leadership contest is Mr Clarke's best chance of winning after two unsuccessful attempts as the party activists, who are overwhelmingly Eurosceptic, are almost certain to be excluded from the process.

His supporters maintain that Mr Clarke is relying on MPs to vote for him in the belief that he has by far the best chance of defeating Gordon Brown, who is widely expected to take over from Tony Blair during the present Parliament.

[ariane] 30/8/2005 09:23

Let's have a Not the Tony Blair party
If the Tories stopped fawning before the prime minister, they might sort out their own leadership problems

Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Tuesday August 30, 2005

Guardian

With varying degrees of sincerity or cynicism, the Conservative leadership candidates have been making their pitches, setting out their stalls, and covering their tracks. In the process they have illuminated the party's continuing malaise. The Tories' deepest problem is Tony Blair: and the answer staring them in the face is the one many of them seem unable to grasp. Far from aping the government, they need to become as unlike it as possible. On every question, from individual freedom to foreign policy, the Tories must became Not the Tony Blair party.
If anyone personifies the problem it is David Cameron. In his speech last week he displayed his gift for eloquent statements of the obvious ("liberal values are best defended from a dangerous assault ... define our shared values ... freedom under the rule of law"), combined with the usual demands for increased state power, including a regulatory authority for mosques. But nothing in Cameron's speech was more significant than his recent comment that "I am proud to have a prime minister who knows what he is doing". It was an echo of Michael Howard's congratulations for Blair on his "statesmanlike" response after the July 7 attacks.

It might be understandable if the Tories are awestruck, or at least punch-drunk, after suffering three devastating election defeats. And yet some Tories' admiration for Blair goes further. If Cameron is bad, the Tory press is worse. Which grovelling New Labour groupie described Blair in these words last year? "Prescient, brave, eloquent and in charge ... a prime minister not just a party leader." That was Charles Moore, former editor of the Daily Telegraph, whose devotion is shared by Michael Gove of the Times, now a Conservative MP campaigning for Cameron: "I can't fight my feelings any more: I love Tony ... as a rightwing polemicist, all I can say looking at Mr Blair now is, what's not to like?"

Many ordinary Tories in the country could answer that question. Far from loving Tony, they loathe him - and here is the great gulf between them and the party leadership. Normal, unideological Tories loathe Blair for banning fox-hunting and for having taken the country into a needless and illegal war on false pretexts, and they loathe the government's relentless assault on individual freedom and due process.

Here is the Tories' selling proposition. A Not the Tony Blair party must be libertarian, not necessarily in an extreme or dogmatic sense but merely defending the ancient liberties of the freeborn Englishman against the most illiberal and oppressive government in generations.

Desperate not to be accused of being soft on crime or on terrorism, the Tory leadership has sold the pass. Having first opposed identity cards, Howard suddenly turned round early this year and insisted that his party should support them. This happened for a peculiarly depressing reason, akin to Martin Kettle's plausible claim that Blair suddenly announced a referendum on the European constitution in the spring of last year to please the Sun.

In February, shortly after the contemptible volte-face on ID cards, I was remonstrating with a senior Tory, who shamefacedly explained: "Michael's still hoping to get the Sun onside before the election." Apart from anything else, that showed Howard's sheer, and most un-Tory, innocence and detachment from reality. Whatever else Rupert Murdoch learned during his sojourn at Oxford so many years ago, it was not a taste for supporting lost causes.

This itself is an opportunity for the Tories to strike a blow for national freedom. When Stanley Baldwin was Conservative opposition leader he launched his ferocious attack on the press lords, with their "power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot". The Tories have little to lose at present; what might not happen if their leader had the courage to do the same as Baldwin?

In foreign affairs as well as domestic, the Tories' salvation must be as Not the Tony Blair party. That would mean an invigorating break with their recent past. When Blair was manoeuvring the country into war three years ago, the then Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, vied with the prime minister in protestations of undying loyalty to the Bush administration, as did his predecessor William Hague. Howard surpassed them all by weirdly saying that he would have supported the war even if he had known there were no weapons of mass destruction. Yet again the Tory press is even worse: Gove insists that George Bush is the new Winston Churchill.

And yet not all senior Tories were mindless hawks. The Iraq war was opposed by an array of former cabinet ministers, Douglas Hurd, Douglas Hogg and John Gummer. It was "extremely foolish and unnecessary", in the words of Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a former foreign secretary and now a leadership candidate. And when John Scarlett gave his evidence supposedly exonerating the government, Rifkind was the first person to perceive what it really demonstrated: the shameful collusion between the intelligence services and Downing Street.

By disavowing his old zeal for the single currency and the European constitution, Kenneth Clarke has laid himself open to the charge of opportunism. Ferdinand Mount in the Telegraph has sardonically listed the other questions, from family taxation to local government, on which he was wrong, which may be so. But even if he was wrong about everything else, Ken Clarke was right about Iraq. He warned about the likely disastrous consequences with a prescience which is now painful to read.

Polls show what everyday observation anyway suggests, that more Tories were opposed to the war than Labour voters. Not only are very many ordinary Tories not in the least proud of Blair, they don't think he has any idea what he is doing, in Iraq or in the "war on terror" at home. Why can't they have a leader who represents them?

· Geoffrey Wheatcroft 's most recent book is The Strange Death of Tory England

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[ariane] 28/8/2005 07:08

Clarke 'best man to lead Tories'
28/08/05
Tory leadership hopeful Ken Clarke has won the backing of ex-shadow cabinet minister Tim Yeo - who also announced he would not be standing as a candidate to succeed Michael Howard.

Mr Yeo, former shadow environment secretary who resigned from the Conservative front bench after the general election, urged others to step aside and endorse Mr Clarke.

The ex-Chancellor has already U-turned over the euro in a bid to counter fears within the party of his pro-EU stance, but has yet to confirm officially he will stand for election.

Mr Yeo urged him to announce he would run "at the earliest opportunity" and said he offered the best hope of returning the Tories to government.

Mr Yeo said: "In my view unquestionably the most likely person to defeat Labour and to see off the threat from the Liberal Democrats is Ken Clarke.

"He has the popular credibility to take our case to the voters. The economy will be the central issue of this Parliament.

"Ken is supremely placed to take the argument to Gordon Brown and win - he has done it before and will do it again."

Mr Yeo supported Michael Portillo in the 2001 leadership election and friends of Mr Clarke said he was "absolutely delighted" by his support.

[ariane] 26/8/2005 09:38

Price Ken Clarke will pay for leadership
Jim Armitage, Evening Standard
26 August 2005
KENNETH Clarke stands to lose out on more than £400,000 a year if he decides to run for the Conservative leadership as he jettisons his string of City directorships.



PRICE TO PAY: Kenneth Clarke could lose out on around £400,000 a year if he runs for the Tory leadership

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While he is best-known for his £150,000 directorship at British American Tobacco, Evening Standard enquiries reveal the hundreds of thousands of pounds the jazz-loving political veteran has been picking up every year from no fewer than six other big-paying jobs.

Friends say he will ditch all those positions if he joins the Tory leadership campaign. 'It's a big job, and he has to show his commitment,' said one.

On top of that, the MP seen as a frugal soul by fellow Tory MPs, will also miss out on tens of thousands of pounds for speaking at corporate events. Since April last year he has earned up to £30,000 from such extracurricular activities while enjoying a host of overseas visits, on two of which his wife Gillian received free flights and accommodation.

As well as the multiple salaries, the Clarkes will lose the other perks of big business, such as the £21,307 of free travel tickets enjoyed by Gillian last year at the expense of BAT.

Such expenses were mainly drawn for Gillian to accompany her husband to social events. A spokesman said these were likely to have included trips around the world to Formula One racing venues as part of Ken's role on the board of the Honda team British American Racing. He no longer works at that division of the tobacco company.

Company filings show that pharmacies chain Alliance UniChem paid Clarke £125,000 for attending 13 meetings last year and chairing its remuneration committee.

Publisher of the Independent newspaper, Independent News & Media, paid him about £50,000 as a director of its UK division and for sitting on its international advisory board of political and business thinkers, the Evening Standard has learned.

Investment firms, Foreign and Colonial Investment Trust and Savoy Asset Management, paid him £26,000 and £50,000 respectively.

Meanwhile, Fitch, which rates companies' financial strength, declined to say how much Clarke was paid for his post on its international advisory committee.

Clarke has built a reputation as a popular after-dinner speaker, and accepts a host of overseas trips to attend conferences.

[grupo guitarlumber] 23/8/2005 06:41

August 23, 2005

Ken Clarke: I was wrong ... the euro is a failure
By Greg Hurst, Political Correspondent



KENNETH CLARKE declared the euro a failure yesterday by proving itself unable to usher in a new era of economic reform and higher living standards in Europe.
In an abrupt about-turn from the Conservative Party's most passionate pro-European figure, he said that conditions had never been right for Britain to join and predicted that it would remain the case for at least a decade.



He spoke out as Tory MPs awaited his confirmation that he will, as expected, stand for a third time to be leader of the party. He has made clear he will do so if he believes he has sufficient support.

His remarks came not in a newspaper or broadcast interview but in a specialist journal, Central Banking. As a seasoned politician, however, the former Chancellor would have known that his remarks would be quickly picked up. By choosing a relatively obscure publication, he might have calculated that any embarrassment in admitting his error over the euro would be lessened.

Mr Clarke told the journal he had been wrong in his assumption of the euro's impact.

"I thought it would lead to increased productivity, efficiency and living standards and stimulate policy reforms. On that front so far it has been a failure", he said. "I do not think there has ever been a time when the British could have joined with complete security and confidence," he added.

"I doubt it is possible for ten years or more."

Mr Clarke criticised the European Central Bank for excessive concentration on keeping a lid on inflation, suggesting that it paid too little regard to encouraging growth and needed a lighter touch, on the lines of the Bank of England or US Federal Reserve.

"I think many people would agree the ECB has to rethink the role it plays in the economic life of the nations it serves," he said. "It must stop imitating the Bundesbank, which was an institution suited for the 1960s." He expressed further concern about the impact of the eurozone's single interest rate on Italy, where populist politicians on the Italian Right have been demanding that Rome should abandon the euro for the lira.

"I am beginning to worry considerably about where Italy is going," Mr Clarke said.

"The Italian Government is utterly oblivious of the need to retain some reasonable fiscal discipline. It is running a kind of family capitalism without paying any heed to the level of wages or costs."

Mr Clarke's move may be calculated to boost his appeal among the Tory MPs on the party's centre-Right, for whom his strong pro-European views have been his greatest stumbling block.

The collapse of Europe's planned constitution, after its rejection by voters in referendums in France and the Netherlands, had already diminished the importance of Europe for this Parliament.

Mr Clarke had remained a consistent supporter of the constitution, which would have placed him on the opposite side of the argument to most Tories had a referendum been held in this country.

In reality, however, prospects of a separate poll on British entry into the euro have looked increasingly remote since Gordon Brown's assessment in July 2003 that four of his five tests had not been met.

THEN AND NOW

'We should join (the euro) as soon as the economic conditions are right'
October 2002

'I thought (the euro) would lead to increased productivity. It has been a failure'
August 2005

[grupo guitarlumber] 23/8/2005 06:41

August 23, 2005

Ken Clarke: I was wrong ... the euro is a failure
By Greg Hurst, Political Correspondent



KENNETH CLARKE declared the euro a failure yesterday by proving itself unable to usher in a new era of economic reform and higher living standards in Europe.
In an abrupt about-turn from the Conservative Party's most passionate pro-European figure, he said that conditions had never been right for Britain to join and predicted that it would remain the case for at least a decade.



He spoke out as Tory MPs awaited his confirmation that he will, as expected, stand for a third time to be leader of the party. He has made clear he will do so if he believes he has sufficient support.

His remarks came not in a newspaper or broadcast interview but in a specialist journal, Central Banking. As a seasoned politician, however, the former Chancellor would have known that his remarks would be quickly picked up. By choosing a relatively obscure publication, he might have calculated that any embarrassment in admitting his error over the euro would be lessened.

Mr Clarke told the journal he had been wrong in his assumption of the euro's impact.

"I thought it would lead to increased productivity, efficiency and living standards and stimulate policy reforms. On that front so far it has been a failure", he said. "I do not think there has ever been a time when the British could have joined with complete security and confidence," he added.

"I doubt it is possible for ten years or more."

Mr Clarke criticised the European Central Bank for excessive concentration on keeping a lid on inflation, suggesting that it paid too little regard to encouraging growth and needed a lighter touch, on the lines of the Bank of England or US Federal Reserve.

"I think many people would agree the ECB has to rethink the role it plays in the economic life of the nations it serves," he said. "It must stop imitating the Bundesbank, which was an institution suited for the 1960s." He expressed further concern about the impact of the eurozone's single interest rate on Italy, where populist politicians on the Italian Right have been demanding that Rome should abandon the euro for the lira.

"I am beginning to worry considerably about where Italy is going," Mr Clarke said.

"The Italian Government is utterly oblivious of the need to retain some reasonable fiscal discipline. It is running a kind of family capitalism without paying any heed to the level of wages or costs."

Mr Clarke's move may be calculated to boost his appeal among the Tory MPs on the party's centre-Right, for whom his strong pro-European views have been his greatest stumbling block.

The collapse of Europe's planned constitution, after its rejection by voters in referendums in France and the Netherlands, had already diminished the importance of Europe for this Parliament.

Mr Clarke had remained a consistent supporter of the constitution, which would have placed him on the opposite side of the argument to most Tories had a referendum been held in this country.

In reality, however, prospects of a separate poll on British entry into the euro have looked increasingly remote since Gordon Brown's assessment in July 2003 that four of his five tests had not been met.

THEN AND NOW

'We should join (the euro) as soon as the economic conditions are right'
October 2002

'I thought (the euro) would lead to increased productivity. It has been a failure'
August 2005

[slapdash] 23/2/2005 14:13

come on people where's your support for our Mayor

[slapdash] 22/2/2005 20:11

ur not much interest in supporting dear Ken

[pvb] 21/11/2004 21:37

Ken Batchelor the new Messiah? Huh! Bring back Horace Batchelor I say!

pvb